


The Renamed

by PerpetuaLilium



Series: Facets of Tar-Míriel [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Casual Sex, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, Name Changes, Names, Prayer, Regret, Religious Content, Situational Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22187491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerpetuaLilium/pseuds/PerpetuaLilium
Summary: Míriel was genuinely willing to set aside politics and try to bridge her country's divides for the sake of someone she really liked.At first.
Relationships: Ar-Pharazon/Tar-Miriel, Tar-Míriel/Original Female Character(s), Tar-Míriel/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Facets of Tar-Míriel [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092827
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	The Renamed

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really don't like the Ar-Zimraphel draft. This is my effort at interpreting it in a way that I think respects the characters and makes sense.
> 
> The very short sections are inspired by the old-fandom "drabble" concept, although they're not 100 words exactly.

The first time he calls her Zimraphel, it is a gesture of reconciliation, of moderation, on her part as much as on his. They’re young and they want to overcome something. There’s a spark, or perhaps a fondness; their fathers are not close; they are not growing up together. “We would absolutely shock the middle classes,” she says. “The depravity of the line of kings.”

“They barely know their history,” he says. “You are an Elf-friend; you ought to. The rumours about Maedhros and Fingon in the First Age; in our own age, a certain couple in Lindon. There’s always an exception.”

“These, though, are days in which the might of the realm runs low,” she said. “There’s a deep wound, a gap to be bridged. I’m willing to set aside any number of differences, for that sake.”

“And I to compromise,” he says, and it seems like it should be true.

*

Platitudes about compromise are all very well but it becomes clear very soon how much he expects of her. He does not use the translation of her name is private, not yet, but it is in regular use in public and he carries the Sceptre more often than should be a prince regent’s wont. He hews close to his father’s policies. “Míriel,” he says to her, “just once please give this to our side.”

*

It’s not in anger that he first calls her Zimraphel to her face. It slips out in a casual conversation about her efforts to encourage Faithful settlement on Endor, efforts of her long game regarding which he knows little. “You’ll have to levy the revenue yourself, of course, Zimmy,” he says offhandedly.

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps; a shadow falls between them, and she does not think it comes from her.

*  
The first lover she takes is a woman. Míriel does not know much about women, other than herself. To be sure she knows less than Pharazôn knows about men—leading them, dominating them, allowing himself to be flattered by their demands. Míriel’s handmaidens are an element of the court in which he has no interest. She throws herself into this element when, first, he takes the king’s title for himself; when, second, he sets sail for Endor, to pacify and civilize its inhabitants as is Númenor’s custom—and for other purposes besides.

*

She has heard of marriages such as this, contracted in dishonesty and innocence, in which the partner of dishonesty visits horrible and imposed treatment upon the other. Her marriage is not such a one. Use of another’s body for pleasure is a quality of mortal Men in their all-too-ordinary Marredness, and into his hatred for the Eldar Pharazôn allows some envy, some desire, almost, for emulation. He never touches her.

She takes more lovers, blithely and unemotionally—women, most commonly, but occasionally men of whom she has heard rumours of impressive endowment or sexual prowess, at times when she does not need to worry about bearing a child. In spite of everything, she does _want_ a child; and almost even wants one with her husband; but he will have no heir, as an heir would remind him that he would not be King Forever.

*

She believes more strongly in Eru than she once did. Now and then she offers Him a prayer, of sorts. More and more she comes to believe that indeed there has to be something more than this, something more that she was made for, something other than submission yet at once other than resistance. There are temples of sorts for which she appropriates moneys, and efforts to transmit sacred texts into Endor. There is little else to be done other than at times to offer pleas Westward, pleas that go unheard or at least unanswered, for reasons at which she does not want to begin to guess.

“Do you love Him?” Amandil asks her.

“I might be learning to,” she says, after a moment’s thought.

*

She prays all the more the more the assumptions of the world and the assumptions of morality are vitiated around her—even within her, as she takes more lovers, deceives her husband more, raids the husband more for partisan ends. Eventually it comes to be the case that all around her as she goes through her life there is, as it were, a veritable cloud of prayer, desperate beseeching, not so much assuming a given target as seeking one, the way a cruise missile might.

It’s at this time that the human sacrifices start. There is—and oh how she has tried—nothing that Míriel can do about them other than to commend to Eru the souls of the dead. She is, just barely, able to get the resources to settle some of the surviving families of the dead on Endor.

*

The war, the Armada, begins, and she refuses to go out to see off the ships. For what is, amazingly, the first time in her marriage, Pharazôn slaps her.

*

The nine ships of the Faithful flee towards Endor. Míriel turns down Elendil’s offer to bear her with them as the true Queen. “The true King,” she says, “will be of the root of Silmariën.” She tries to intercede, one last time, as the Doom comes. She ascends the Mountain for the first time in scores of years, or tries to.

*

When she is spirited beyond the Circles of the World, she doesn’t feel the collapse.


End file.
